{"id":4973,"date":"2017-08-08T13:00:32","date_gmt":"2017-08-08T12:00:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/change-academy\/?p=4973"},"modified":"2017-05-04T15:30:31","modified_gmt":"2017-05-04T14:30:31","slug":"you-reveal-your-commitments-in-what-you-say-and-what-you-do-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/change-academy\/2017\/08\/08\/you-reveal-your-commitments-in-what-you-say-and-what-you-do-2\/","title":{"rendered":"You reveal your commitments in what you say and what you do"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><strong><em>An earlier version of this was first posted on <a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/change-academy\/2015\/08\/08\/you-reveal-your-commitments-in-what-you-say-and-what-you-do\/\">August 8th 2015<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<figure style=\"width: 240px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/change-academy\/files\/2014\/10\/Deke-Slayton.jpg\" width=\"240\" height=\"155\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Not a banal team building task\u2026 Deke Slayton\u2019s CO2 scrubber fix, designed to save Apollo 13 astronauts from asphyxiation.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\">When it comes down to it, what are we really committed to? How can we test our integrity, our true priorities and principles? How do people judge our choices and interpret our values? How do we show what we think is important? The answer is startlingly simple. In the words of a valued former colleague, Derek Middleton, whom I worked with many years ago,<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\">\u00a0 <em>&#8220;<strong>You show your commitments by what you say and what you do<\/strong>&#8220;<\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\">Derek implied that he was quoting someone else, but\u00a0I have yet to find a source in the intervening years, so I will attribute it to him.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\">\u00a0The statement is far from a banal truism. It is a test of character:<\/p>\n<ul style=\"text-align: justify\">\n<li style=\"text-align: justify\">Do we <span style=\"text-decoration: underline\"><strong>link<\/strong><\/span> what we say with what we do?<\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify\">Do we <span style=\"text-decoration: underline\"><strong>do<\/strong><\/span> the things which we say are important?<\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify\">Do we <span style=\"text-decoration: underline\"><strong>say<\/strong><\/span> the things which we know are important?<\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify\">Do we <span style=\"text-decoration: underline\"><strong>prioritise<\/strong><\/span>\u00a0 our actions just as we do our words &amp; ideas?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\">Lets face it &#8211; are we <span style=\"text-decoration: underline\">really<\/span> committed? We can apply this to our ethics, our respect of others, our work values, our plans, goals, priorities, sense of self, use of time. It forces us to be honest with ourselves, to reject the\u00a0 excuse: &#8216;<em>I haven&#8217;t got the time<\/em>&#8216;. It is about self-management and real priorities.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\">Analogies from the\u00a0worlds of sports and entertainment tend to fail in these discussions; dedication tends to be relatively time-bound (to achievement, excellence or skill acquisition) and is a relatively poor relation to <span style=\"text-decoration: underline\"><strong>true commitment<\/strong><\/span>; what we say &amp; what we do.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\">Reading:<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\">Coppin, A. and Barratt, J. (2002) Timeless Management, Palgrave MacMillan, NY<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\">Covey, S. (1989) 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Simon &amp; Shuster, New York, NY.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\">Lovell, J. and Kluger J. (1994) Lost Moon &#8211; the perilous voyage of Apollo.\u00a0Houghton Mifflin, NY<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>An earlier version of this was first posted on August 8th 2015 When it comes down to it, what are we really committed to? How can we test our integrity, our true priorities and principles? How do people judge our choices and interpret our values? How do we show what we think is important? The &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/change-academy\/2017\/08\/08\/you-reveal-your-commitments-in-what-you-say-and-what-you-do-2\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">You reveal your commitments in what you say and what you do<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2246,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[161682],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/change-academy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4973"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/change-academy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/change-academy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/change-academy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2246"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/change-academy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4973"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/change-academy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4973\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4980,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/change-academy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4973\/revisions\/4980"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/change-academy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4973"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/change-academy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4973"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/change-academy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4973"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}